For the last 10 years, Eric Sineath has managed a professional services team that provides IT consulting to AT&T customers. Well-versed in all things IT , from Cloud Computing to security. Sineath’s specialty is voice and unified communications (UC), a term he’d change to “appropriate communications” if he could. Says Sineath, Chief Architect, AT&T Consulting: “A lot of organizations don’t know how to get their arms around UC.”

Today’s customers use email, voice mail, unified messaging, voice and telephony, video-conferencing—all aspects of UC. But a UC strategy enacted without proper planning can cause headaches. “People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan,” Sineath explains. To increase the chances of a successful UC rollout, Sineath and his team offer:

UC strategies and roadmaps,

readiness assessments,

life cycle UC deployment services,

IP voice services,

UC SIP integrations,

conferencing integration and

Microsoft technologies consulting.

Among other things, Sineath suggests that organizations form a cross-functional working group and develop use cases, strategies and a plan of operation for UC. Doing so has a secondary benefit: it often prompts organizational change—especially in companies that operate in a silo-heavy environment.

Who needs a UC platform? “Any industry that relies heavily on collaboration,” notes Sineath. For instance, a global pharmacology company that relies on an eco-system of partners—government agencies, universities, employees all over the world—would be well-supported by a UC platform. UC gives remote team members access to the same tools and services as those who work in the home office. And as Cloud Computing has gained momentum, AT&T Consulting has been developing support for its customers’ cloud computing requirements.

Sineath lives in Jacksonville, FL along with his wife, who also works for AT&T. Both work out of a home office, and Sineath considers his work situation a sign of things to come. He envisions a communications “nirvana” as ubiquitous and mobile: cloud-based services, social network connectivity and UC services accessible from any device at any time from anywhere. “That would be the ultimate in enabling technology,” he says.

When he’s not touting the benefits of UC and assisting AT&T customers with their IT needs, Sineath is turning up the music. He and his wife are taking ballroom dancing lessons and he’s always liked to sing. He’s played in bands—mostly classic rock and blues—and when he was in the Navy, Sineath played ports of call.